Posted
by
Soulskillon Tuesday August 02, 2011 @07:15PM
from the proliferation-of-supportable-things dept.

snydeq writes "Nathan Clevenger examines the impact that the 'consumerization' of information technology will have on IT organizations, a trend fueled in large part by employee interest in the latest mobile devices, notably the iPhone and iPad. The growing practice of introducing new technologies into consumer markets before industrial markets stands to cause a sea change in the IT/user relationship, Clevenger writes, adding that this will likely involve 'painful changes in the status quo of corporate IT,' including the need to 'shed our arrogance' to give the underlying technology a chance to succeed. 'Although the debate around the impact of consumerization will no doubt continue for some time, the adoption of mobile technologies and enterprise applications is moving forward, whether or not IT departments are on board,' Clevenger writes, in large part because the trend provides companies with a strong opportunity to improve efficiency, productivity, and profit."

In addition to the regs, I'm just curious as to how the consumer is going to run out and buy things with product names like "Clariion", "Catalyst 6509", "F5 big-ip", "vSphere", "Oracle RAC", "Xeon", and the like. Hell, you'd have a very rough time finding desktops/laptops with SAS drives, dedicated RAID cards, or anything near to using fiber. I also serio

Sure, some things and components can be consumerized, but I'm just not seeing this 'consumerization of IT' being as all-pervasive as TFA implies that it i

Sure, some things and components can be consumerized, but I'm just not seeing this 'consumerization of IT' being as all-pervasive as TFA implies that it is.

I had one user tell me that we *have* to support AirPrint so users can print from their iPads. He said that as soon as we do that, IT will save a bundle since people will start abandoning desktops and laptops and move solely to the iPad since printing is the last thing keeping them on traditional computers.

So I pulled out the last 10 purchase requisitions for computers and pointed out that all of them included dual monitors (even for laptops), and wondered why if people are so willing to work on a 10" iPad

A user has asked for Airprint to be supported. a quick google search of "windows airprint", gives instructions how to do it. its an easy fix.

However, you rather tell your users they should be using windows 7 instead.

No, you're reading too much into my post. I told him to come back to me when he has a corporate supported iPad (we do have some) since we don't allow personal devices on our internal network, and we'll help him make printing work. Unlike users, I have a regulatory mandate to protect our network from rogue devices.

I certainly didn't recommend Win7 as a solution since 30% of the devices on our network run OSX (including the laptop on my desk).

In the enterprise, the tablet will replace the laptop once efficient docking, keyboard, mouse and multiple monitor support exist. High-end (as opposed to the current cadre of browser-based office apps) productivity software will also be paramount (esp., the bastion of finance, the spreadsheet).

This soundss exactly like the reaction of an 80s MIS shop to personal computers. At first they were banned, then they supported by the finance guys (Visicalc, Lotus 1-2-3) who brought in contractors (that was me) to get the tech support not available from the mainframe guys. Now look, we can't function without Outlook and Google, and the PC IT folks are gearing up to ban the next generation.

Consider this: Information is something you cannot control, any more than you can control people.

Especially when computer led "productivity" enhancements in reality are all about replacing people with computing power and also replacing expensive skilled people with cheaper partly trained button pressers. Technically the more powerful the devices, the fewer people required and the lower the skill set needed, hmm, until something goes wrong, then kablowie, it's somebody else's problem and the implementers are out of there with their bonuses and golden parachutes. Mainly because the efficiencies gained d

The parent post demonstrates many of the problems with modern IT departments.

Firstly, note the unnecessary and repetitive use of derogatory terms for customers and general profanity. Hardly professional.

Second, complaints that the users are undermining IT perfect systems by buying devices or installing software. Basic economics tells us that users are investing money and time in these thing because they deliver value. Value that It is not delivering to a demand from their user base.

Second, complaints that the users are undermining IT perfect systems by buying devices or installing software. Basic economics tells us that users are investing money and time in these thing because they deliver value. Value that It is not delivering to a demand from their user base.

Value to whom? Value to the user doesn't imply value to the company. It can very well mean negative value to the company, when the user is unable to run software or access server functions that the company requires, the user needs support for a device that IT has no idea how to support, or the company loses data because the device isn't backed up, or when HR is unable to figure out just who downloaded child porn during work hours, only that it wasn't on company equipment.

Firstly, note the unnecessary and repetitive use of derogatory terms for customers and general profanity. Hardly professional.

Right or wrong, I can tell you from where that originates.

Most people would never fault a paraplegic, who is in a wheelchair, for being unable to do jumping jacks. He would probably love to do them. He really cannot. It is "cannot", not "will not". Likewise, most people would not fault a diagnosed mentally retarded person for being unable to understand simple things. Chances are, no one has a harder time not hating that than he. There is no point and no profit in blaming either of those, and doing so would indicate extreme heartlessness and lack of understanding.

The problem is, there are large masses of people who have no disabilities of any kind. They are capable of abstract thought, of following simple instructions, of performing at least a minimal search for something and only asking for help if that doesn't find what they are looking for. They can do all of these things. Yet, a great many of them refuse to think. They don't want to use whatever thinking they can perform. By that I don't mean anything extreme or over-the-top or unreasonable. By that I mean an unnaturally high degree of helplessness, a freakishly strong desire for handholding even when this would take much more time than a two-minute Google search they are more than capable of performing.

Thinking is for "the help". That's grunt work for the computer janitors to do for them. It would not even occur to them to try. Thus, for most tech support lines, the one person who truly has a real problem that really does require the attention of a technician gets to wait on hold for 10-45 minutes because the lines are tied up by people who failed to read page 1 of the manual, the help file, the README file, the FAQ, the Web site, and the last e-mail they received.

This is the mentality with which you are dealing. You can gloss over it and cover it up with your grand notions of service, but you're patting yourself on the back to forget how much youre tempted to apply a cat-o-nine-tails to theirs. In a way, it truly is a trophy to be able to deal with that without getting a severe headache. After a while you can start to believe that you're just that eager to serve. I consider it a coping mechanism. The truth is, that mentality invites failure, asks for failure, begs for preventable problems, and tries very hard to defeat itself with problems of its own creation. It just so happens that they hired you to stand between themselves and any such consequences.

So you end up having to defend a network from both outside threats and the self-defeating, shortsighted actions of insiders who meant well. This isn't a fun position in which to find oneself. Oh, and if you lock it down too much, you will be swamped with complaints about functionality. It's like trying to simultaneously satisfy multiple contradictory conditions.

Most of those conditions wouldn't be contradictory if only users would attain the slightest clue pertaining to the tools they use every day. I am not talking about the knowledge of a skilled mechanic. I am talking about knowing how to drive. Lots of highway accidents didn't require an auto mechanic to prevent; they required a driver who understood how to drive. IT is like this. I do not refer to the skill needed to smelt iron ore, forge pig iron, and craft a hammer. I refer to the fact that a carpenter knows how to use his tools, even though they are not the goal of his job. So it is with workers who use computers but should not need to become experts. They only need to know basics. They refuse to learn them in a way that a driver could never refuse to learn to drive and expect to get away with.

Just as there's no point in being well-adjusted to a sick society, there's no point in seeing all of this and telling yourself that it is normal and should not change. The crux of the matter is whether you can know how fucked up it is and still deal with it patiently, educating those who will be educated and assisting the rest as much as you can. Making excuses for it and debasing yourself is just weak.

I'm sure someone will post the obligatory XKCD... but it truly is amazing how many of the user's problems the technician solves by reading the documentation. Of course, the user has convinced themselves that this stuff is impenetrable, and so the words are just so much line noise to them. Oh and by the way, they have no idea what a line is, or what noise is. Best to just enjoy job security because the world is complicated, people specialize because you can't learn everything, and at the end of the day, not

I'm sure someone will post the obligatory XKCD... but it truly is amazing how many of the user's problems the technician solves by reading the documentation. Of course, the user has convinced themselves that this stuff is impenetrable, and so the words are just so much line noise to them. Oh and by the way, they have no idea what a line is, or what noise is. Best to just enjoy job security because the world is complicated, people specialize because you can't learn everything, and at the end of the day, not all of us can be geeks. Whether that's a good or bad thing, we could debate until 1 became 0.

The commentary was more about the way human beings choose to deal with the world, their refusal to invest anything in it, the fact they are still so willing to complain, etc. Job security wasn't what I was addressing.

The difference between a technician and a babysitter is more like what I was writing about. Many, many "babies" are well into middle age...

Second, complaints that the users are undermining IT perfect systems by buying devices or installing software. Basic economics tells us that users are investing money and time in these thing because they deliver value. Value that It is not delivering to a demand from their user base.

... and...

Fifth, the wireless access point anecdote highlights appalling sysadmin practices. One point of access into the network and the bad guy was able to des

And thus the cathedral mentality is exposed. have you so little faith in your network that you cant defend yourself from the users? A network is more then a collection of business systems. Its an ecosystem of users, functionality, security, admins, decision makers. Its not a cathedral but a living design that needs to change to reflect the changes in technology. No one is saying let any old cheap chinese crap android tablet on your network, but my question would be, where is your alternative you can point t

have you so little faith in your network that you cant defend yourself from the users?

No, but often defending the network from the users means that certain things have to be handled in a way that you wouldn't do in someone's home network environment.

Believe it or not, IT security concerns for a University, Hospital, or large-scale (or even smaller-scale) business, from a law firm to department store chain, make it so that they are a completely different environment from the knocked-together, wide open "home

"Believe it or not, IT security concerns for a University, Hospital, or large-scale (or even smaller-scale) business, from a law firm to department store chain, make it so that they are a completely different environment from the knocked-together, wide open "home network" involving someone bringing a $25 router home from Best Buy, plugging it into a DSL modem, plugging their home PC in and setting their laptop to talk to a wide-open wireless network that has named itself "Netgear", and never bothering to co

Believe it or not, IT security concerns for a University, Hospital, or large-scale (or even smaller-scale) business, from a law firm to department store chain, make it so that they are a completely different environment from the knocked-together, wide open "home network" involving someone bringing a $25 router home from Best Buy, plugging it into a DSL modem, plugging their home PC in and setting their laptop to talk to a wide-open wireless network that has named itself "Netgear", and never bothering to configure the security setup or even make sure that their laptop's administrator password isn't blank.

Did you find that straw man a satisfying opponent? GP said that your infrastructure should be able to handle attacks from within, and GP is right. You argue that you have to take this stuff more seriously than the average user, but then you tell us that you're incapable of doing so. What happens when some jerkoff who's not even supposed to be there tries to get on your network? If you're prepared for that, you'll be prepared for doctors trying to use poorly-secured IOS devices.

If you're prepared for that, you'll be prepared for doctors trying to use poorly-secured IOS devices.

Sigh.

The proper response to the poorly-secured devices is to not let them onto the network. The entire argument going on here is that people who don't understand what they are doing want to simultaneously have a "secure network" while letting any random device that someone may bring from home onto it.

Now, can you set up a "walled garden" for guest-level devices to play in? Sure. But I can guarantee you, a "w

If you're prepared for that, you'll be prepared for doctors trying to use poorly-secured IOS devices.

Sigh.

The proper response to the poorly-secured devices is to not let them onto the network. The entire argument going on here is that people who don't understand what they are doing want to simultaneously have a "secure network" while letting any random device that someone may bring from home onto it.

Now, can you set up a "walled garden" for guest-level devices to play in? Sure. But I can guarantee you, a "walled garden" won't touch the stuff that Mr. Gotta Have New Shiny Toy wants it to touch.

And we are telling you that saying no to everything IS NO LONGER VIABLE. The barbarians are at the gate, my friend. Will you be Denethor or Theoden? While you stand in your fortress or will you ride out to the Rohirrim?. It is fools like you i enjoy steamrolling in I.T. meetings. Your entrenched position is no longer safe. We are coming for YOU.

Secondly, there are laws that would put me in jail if I was negligent in protecting corporate data.

Thirdly, I'm not paid to troubleshoot your screwed up home network.

Fourthly, you have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Yes, basic key separation is superior, but you do not protect a high security key with 4 digits, especially when research shows that 80% of the time, you can get in within 10 tries. Your phone is not a PC, but it is storing data that needs to be se

Most good I.T. departments consider their coworkers their customers. Its honestly a sign of respect. The real world of that is there needs to be some separation of I.T. and other departments, jsut like H.R. is usually insular too. Its a sensitive area of the company involving lots of privacy and control for often very good reasons. We address our coworkers as customers to reflect this distinction. Familiarity breeds contempt.

This is precisely the problem. In an ideal world, users would stick within usage policies and requirements. When there was a policy for equipment requests, for support of personal devices, they'd follow it.

That's fantasyland. In the real world, IT is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between "supporting the users" and defending the network from the users. Damned if they do, damned if they don't, and taken through the wringer the moment some bad-apple employee makes off with company property or leaks trade secrets that have been copied to a USB memory stick. Or lets loose something on the network because they just can't resist clicking on "OMG FREE PUPPY SCREENSAVER."

The problem is that IT has to deal with five categories of user. They're easy to categorize.

1. Knows nothing. KNOWS they know nothing. Ask questions often, but ask questions before they cause trouble. Not a major source of trouble, just use up a certain amount of time.2. Technically savvy, follows procedures. When these guys call, it's going to be a doozy, but they've got a ton of troubleshooting steps ready and a list of things they have done for you to look at. When they come in with a new gadget, they're willing to give IT the time to research how best to support it.These two categories are not the problem, because they approach IT as coworkers to work with.3. Knows just enough to cause trouble. Believes themselves technically savvy. Will lie out their asses rather than admit to flailing around and making the problem worse.4. Knows nothing, but wants the Latest Shiny Thing and wants it to Just Work Like It Does In The Commercials.These are the problem. These types of users are the ones who get into large amounts of trouble and take up the majority of troubleshooting time, mostly because they are not treating IT as co-workers to be collaborated with, but someone to be bossed around. These are the sort of user who treats passwords as a hindrance, rather than keys to important locks. They wouldn't leave the combination to the company safe in the open, but they think nothing of leaving their username and password on a sticky-note under the keyboard.

The final type of user, the one every IT person dreads and prays never to encounter but has to protect against anyways, is the user who is actively trying to sabotage the network or do something outright illegal on it. And yes, sometimes protecting against these users inconveniences the other users.

Name a profession where "customers" hold a dual position of know-nothing and know-it-all, and you'll name a profession where the true masters have derisive stories to tell behind "customers'" backs.

One of the arguments is about a person who is berating her IT department for the fact that her laptop won't work at home. Apparently, they told her repeatedly to call her ISP, and she refused to do so. The very picture of the uncooperative user who refuses to work with IT to solve the problem.

And yet, Mr. DeathSquid accuses the GPP of being incompetent, saying "a competent network engineer could diagnose that in minutes". Well, I reread GPP's post, and it appears that they did in fact have it correctly diagnosed, but that the problem was an intractable, uncooperative user who simply shouted "you fix it" at the IT department rather than holding up her end of the bargain to call her home ISP.

I'm willing to bet that this is the kind of stuff Mr. DeathSquid does to people in IT all the time. When you're dealing with coworkers, you have to be willing to look at things from their perspective. When IT says the problem appears to be with your home connection, and that you're the one who will need to call your ISP to have it checked, the proper response is to call your ISP, not shout at IT and yell at them for "not fixing it."

"but she wouldn't admit the possibility or even call AT&T until we made her try it when she was visiting her brother in another state and her laptop worked fine in his house (with his open wireless connection). Instead, we were treated to 3 weeks of "why can't you fucking people make my laptop work at home" from her."

It sure as hell looks to me like they knew for a hell of a long time that her DSL was down, but she was refusing to call them. In other words... the user was be

You complain that IT should be involved by co-workers "from the start". Perhaps you should to reflect on how your behaviour might be anathema to your goals?

This line is 100% spot on, if you want to be involved from the start them make your coworkers problems your own and help them solve the business problem. Build that relationship and you'll find you'll be invited to things from the start.

I work in IT and you don't speak for me. We work for the users, not the other way around. It's our job to provide them with the best tools for the job, not the tools that are the easiest for us to manage. With an attitude like that we'll never shake the old mentality people have of their IT departments.

Hate to rain on your parade but the world is changing, employees and customers are becoming technologically enabled and corporate IT will have to adapt. I work for a global healthcare company and this is how we address the issues you raise.

- thousands of morons with newly bought insecure devices grab them from the shelves and expect to plug them in behind the firewall at corporations or businesses where trade secrets, GLBA, HIPPA, FERPA, and other privacy or security regulations exist.

Don't let them plug them in behind the firewall, but as important give them a means to access the Internet and come in via your external secure gates into your corporate network. We do this via having a wifi network which is effectively air gapped from the corporate netwo

"As perceptive CIOs seek to transform their rigid, legacy ridden infrastructures into agile, efficient, service-driven delivery mechanisms, they must adopt a pragmatic approach to managing the risks of consumer IT while embracing the benefits.

"As perceptive CIOs seek to transform their rigid, legacy ridden infrastructures into agile, efficient, service-driven delivery mechanisms, they must adopt a pragmatic approach to managing the risks of consumer IT while embracing the benefits.

I stopped reading right there.

Upper management? Nope. Some lucky consultant got a high paying gig that probably only cost him a decent meal for a buddy.

Well, nice way to judge based on a Gartner quote. It's a shame you stopped reading right there - the very next paragraph shows why this is important.

In 2005, the idea promoted by Gartner that consumerization would be the most important trend of the next decade might have been controversial. But traction from the iPhone, which went from 0 percent adoption to 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies between June 2008 and June 2010, undeniably demonstrates the powerful impact of this trend.

Management and business leaders have their own technical language, funnily enough. Just as technologists have developed a specialized terminology to efficiently and unambiguously communicate their thoughts, other niches also have ways of saying things which might appear cumbersome or unwieldy (or downright impenetrable) to outsiders but which have a crisp meaning to the users.

That paragraph has a fair few buzz words, admittedly, but it's pretty clear what it actually says. Innovation is happening at the consumer device level, and CIOs can look to that arena and figure out a strategy to get the best technology into their environment, or they can let their networks stagnate. Seriously, how hard is that to parse out?

If you'd gone on further, you'd have seen a fantastic exceprt at the bottom of page two about an IT department for Hyatt Hotels taking the iPad and proving how it could really help the organization. And it's even relatively business buzz word free, for your convenience.

Ironically, just a wee bit further on is this snippet:

IT groups have to "shed our arrogance" to give the underlying technology a chance to succeed.

Next time, get over yourself and read the damn article. You might learn something. Or, there again, with your attitude, you might not.

I understand what you're saying, but I can relate to the parent's cynicism. I've been involved in many i-device rollouts to upper management at various companies.Most of the time it's pretty darn obvious that the upper managers just want the latest toys to show off to their upper manager friends so they can compare their iPenis sizes. Another reason is because CIOs don't like it when their kids have better technology then they do. So they tell IT to take this technology, implement it now and we can figure o

I can't disagree with you. In fact, the article even supports this by talking openly about the security issues.

Believe me, I have clients who just don't understand why they can't go to dell.com and order a server and have us plug it into out network. I well remember many years ago when someone circumvented IT and specced out a server on IBM's web site and talked procurement into buying it. They saw big, honking fast, expensive, had to be amazing, right? Problem was the server they ordered was ideal for a sp

In my department, "let's play" happens at the System Engineer/Helpdesk level. A vast majority of our new tech/process implementations stemmed from wanting to solve existing administration and support problems... We get the brand new stuff, we configure it the way it should be, we make it interface with existing systems.

I'm a firm believer that upper management should never make the fine-grained decisions (which hardware to buy, which software package to implement). Those decisions should only be made b

How can we enforce policies to keep business data under control and segmented from personal data?

By saying "No", a lot of the time.

Obligatory car-related analogy: "But waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change is boring, and it takes too long, I want to use this vaulting pole!" where waiting for the light to change is securing your communications, and the pole is your iGadget device.

Management needs to be forced to understand that you can have neat gadgets/convenience, or you can have security. Not

This comes up every couple years when there's a new doo-hickey-thing-a-ma-bob released (now with Sprinkles!) and the users of the world clamor for it.

When IT insists these devices be vetted for "security and compatibility" they're accused of "foot-dragging, turf-protection, and ivory-tower arrogance!" If they just allow people to use anything and there's a security breach IT is blamed for being "lax about security." The classic Kobayashi Maru "No-win scenario" for the IT admin.

In 2005, the idea promoted by Gartner that consumerization would be the most important trend of the next decade might have been controversial. But traction from the iPhone, which went from 0 percent adoption to 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies between June 2008 and June 2010, undeniably demonstrates the powerful impact of this trend.>/quote>Buying your CxOs and allowing other suits to use an iPhone to for phone calls and pictures of their children doesn't imply "adoption". It's a perk, not an adoption.

Once you buy them for the janitors and sysadmins (but, I repeat myself), teach help desk how to support them, and redo your internal applications so they actually work with an iPhone, then you have adopted the iPhone.

"As perceptive CIOs seek to transform their rigid, legacy ridden infrastructures into agile, efficient, service-driven delivery mechanisms, they must adopt a pragmatic approach to managing the risks of consumer IT while embracing the benefits.

Clevenger writes, adding that this will likely involve 'painful changes in the status quo of corporate IT,' including the need to 'shed our arrogance' to give the underlying technology a chance to succeed.

I don't think you understand what "underlying technology" means.

This isn't about the wireless standards that the phones adhere too.Or any of the other REAL technologies.

This is about security and accountability.Who is responsible for the data on your iPad when it is stolen?What is the process AFTER it is stolen?

Some of the requirements are that the device be kept locked and that they grant the company the ability to remote wipe it.

IOW the device becomes the company's.

How about putting the data in some format where it won't be cached on the handheld and letting mobile users access it while connected? Like, say, in flash? Oh wait, IOS devices don't have flash. Since Apple is a dick, I guess the remaining option is to write some kind of dynamic application that delivers the data in a form the user can't conveniently save, such as image data.

There are other security related requirements, but that is just the cost of being able to use your phone/tablet.

Giving someone else the right to remote wipe the device is not a working solution. That gives awa

MIDS are going to march into corporate I.T. like a storm. A huge sea change in the way we develop and deploy solutions is coming. We are seeing the beginning of the end of MS as the corporate go-to solution, at least their current offerings. Sure people will still use MS infrastructure crap for decades, but the desktop as we know it is going to die. Your computer is going to be a MID that docks when you get to your desk and then syncs to the cloud storage (intra/inter-net). When it docks up it will be much

It's always the end-user's responsibility to safeguard data, whether it's on their iPhone or printed out in their briefcase.

No. There is a HUGE difference between physical documents and electronic files. The end-user cannot be relied upon to know how to make sure all the copies of a document are deleted from their toy-of-the-month. Nor can they be relied upon to perform the necessary actions even if they did know.

For example, don't wait for them to figure out how to access their email from their iPad to educate them about security, implement a secure container system like Good and tell everyone, "If you want to use your iPad to access work email, go to this website to set it up."

The problem with Good is that it doesn't actually integrate with the user's device - it sits on the top like an unsightly wart. We implemented it in our company and the initial "great, I can get email on my iPhone and iPad" has quickly turned into "why can't we have proper email and calendar access?" Usage (traffic) levels have fallen by more than half, but our licensing costs remain absurdly high for a product that offers little more than webmail on iOS. To me, this is the danger of the consumerization con

It's fine to tell an individual, "Here are the keys to the car you just purchased. Here is how to lock it so others cannot steal it. Here is how to unlock it so that you can enter the vehicle and drive. You're on your own now." But when you give them the ability to lock and unlock other peoples' stuff (i.e. corporate intellectual property generated in a company of more than one person), there exists a responsibility to those other persons. Most organizations have found that, left to one's own devices,

According to Robert Stephens, founder of the Geek Squad and CTO at electronics retailer Best Buy, the iPad is... it. You can customize and order a pizza from Papa John's right from your iPhone. IT no longer has the unique set of knowledge about what is possible. The user now knows what they want, and they can and will demand it from IT."

There is a HUGE difference between ordering a pizza and keeping confidential documents on your iPhone.

MIDS are going to march into corporate I.T. like a storm. A huge sea change in the way we develop and deploy solutions is coming. We are seeing the beginning of the end of MS as the corporate go-to solution, at least their current offerings. Sure people will still use MS infrastructure crap for decades, but the desktop as we know it is going to die. Your computer is going to be a MID that docks when you get to your desk and then syncs to the cloud storage (intra/inter-net). When it docks up it will be much like a traditional desktop you see now.

I really don't understand the whole MIDS thing -- why would I want a device in my pocket powerful enough to run my financial forecasting spreadsheets and display them across 3 monitors? Seems much better to have a central repository for my data (i.e. my office network) and VPN in to access it remotely. Or at the very least, carrying a 32GB MicroSD card around with all of my data seems much more portable and easier than carrying some powerful MIDS. I can keep that MicroSD card in my phone so I can look at a

I don't understand this. Cant it do both? Can't it be both a cloud end point for some types of data and a data processor for others? Laptops suck. Plain and simple. They are 30 years of design kludge. I would rath focus on making useful tablets and software to bridge the gaps then continue to push the current desktop/laptop paradigm. I would rather we design tablets with great peripheral integration, and the ability to become desktop/laptop with accessories.

Most of our problems, such as the current debt debate over something that has happened many times before, is because some people, especially those that can't read or think they are gods. Things always change. The powerful aristocracy always falls. The proletariat always finds a way to gain additional power. Of course most of the proletariat don't read history, so are fooled by the naysayers that prognosticate the fall of civilization is the rich and powerful are in any way inconvinenced, so we get lame a

The thing is when PCs entered the business world, we had the same articles about it meaning the death if IT and its control over how and where we use company data. The thing is, over time, IT became even more important as people started to rely on the data being stored on computing devices to a greater degree. We even had a bunch of laws passed which made companies responsible to control their data.
Every decade or so, we have some new consumer computing device come along and people say, "We have to loosen

Consumer devices lack a lot of the safety features that are required in most corporate environments. For instance, the iDevices world make it difficult to make sure that the user locks their machines, and since they won't want to have to enter passwords/etc to get to their mail or important documents, it leaves the door wide open to anyone who swipes the device to retrieve the data. All because the user was too lazy to set a lock password.

You really should take a look at the Mobile Device Management (MDM) platforms. I recommend checking out Air-Watch and MobileIron specifically. You can, among other things, require devices to have passwords and meet complexity requirements. What we need to do is stop saying "we can't do it" and take a realistic look at how we can.

Oh, not saying we can't. We're using the BlackBerry Enterprise stuff quite well, and are moving into the Apple and even Android areas.

It just gets difficult when we have a user come up and state, "I just bought personal Device XYZ and want you to hook it up to your network." We haven't tested, don't know that particular OS's layout, etc.

And some devices you just can't, for sake of policy reasons, etc. At least not yet. Lotus Domino is JUST NOW beginning to support full push to Android, and we're s

Yeah, this is what we're currently using. However, it still feels pretty rudimentary and "bolted on", not really a part of the overall plan from Apple.

It would be nice if they built in the enterprise stuff a little more core to the OS, and just left it "turned off" for consumers. Then, if you're an enterprise, you can more closely integrate it into the environment.

It would also be nice to not have to use iTunes to do fine-tuning on the configuration, especially how they tie a device to a computer/Ap

a while back I was working sales in a dev shop. My mantra was: our apps should be so easy to use that your mom should be able to use them. Not you, not me, not your GF... your mom. And I'm not talking about that ubercool geeky mom, I'm talking about the one who gets lost because an icon moved 2 inches to the left...

I regularly got shot down for dumbing things down too much... I still sure I was right, though.

it depends on whether you're talking features or ergonomics. And of whether your app is *supposed* to be usable by all, or only by a select few. I can understand your point, but, also, there's a perverse developer pride in making something so complicated that barely anyone can use it. Complexity != power, nor versatility.

It's OK to have features that very few users ever use. It's no longer OK though, if those "rare" features obscure the "frequent" ones. And, in my experience, oftentimes even barebones apps

who has accidentally occupied a desk at the offices of Infoworld for some time now. It all started 2 years ago when Nathan was formally accepted to 'synergy leverage monthly,' a publication of no real relevance to anyone but managers who have reached a point in management where they no longer speak in real sentences. That isnt to say the sentences are poorly structured or in an indeterminate language, its just to conclude rightly that these sentences are devoid of any logical meaning.

Anyhow, Nathans expertise (synergistic strategization of pinged leverage potentials and service driven design paradigms in the web 2.0 echelon of modern business dynamics) while perfectly natural in the publication of SL monthly, serves poorly for infoworld. Infoworld staffers understand this, and try to cope with Nathan as best they can through the common medium of corporate lunch at the local diner or the occasional holiday party. Their hope is that at some point, SL monthly may realize, although highly unlikely, they are in fact missing a staff member during the morning hyper-power-concept core lunch strategy event and begin combing the halls before or after this tumultuous event for Nathan.

From my 1970's/1980's perspective, everything started at as consumer technology. The "P" in "PC" stands for "personal computer" -- the PC was IBM's entry into the market to compete against the home computers of the Atari 800, Apple ][, and Commodore 64. To this day, I have this stereotype stuck in my head, and when I think my hotel reservations, bank account info, brokerage account, etc. are probably being handled by Windows or Linux servers I can't help but think, "I can't believe they're storing all thi

In a company with a top down command structure those that violate policy without regard will be fired. That's not saying that new technology will be stifled, but to say that the policy will change to accommodate the new technology. The old gaurd will take up positions within the new regime as fast as you can sneeze. Already iphones and ipads in my organization are being hamstrung by old security wonks that were vocal against anything but blackberries. Now they pro

This puts IT departments into a difficult and often untenable position. On the one hand, their users are clamoring for the latest gadgets to be integrated into the company's business tech. On the other hand, new devices may represent major security holes, or best practices for their use and integration may not yet be established.

If some new device results in a system crash or a security breach, it'll be the IT people whose jobs are on the line, not the user who insisted on using the new device.

I had a hard time finding work before this job that I have now. Companies still want and operate against technologies such as BEA TUXEDO(i had to look that up because I had never heard of it before), VBA Access / MS SQL 2008, MFC(MFC??? "Really?!", I said to myself. "Microsoft doesn't even support it anymore"). Other skills of epic proportions included excel, crystal reports, clearcase, fortran...yes ALL IN ONE job posting. I am telling you, there are jobs like this everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Sooner or later b

But in an odd twist, we're also coming full circle. Many of the apps that make the iPad and iPhone such compelling tools rely on massive server farms in remote data centers. "The Cloud" is in a sense the modern equivalent of the mainframe.

Would mod up if could. The ipaderisation of corporate IT means moving all the real work back onto the servers, locking everything down, and limiting what users can do to web browsing. Delivering web pages that can do everything users need to is the thing. The ipad is great for web browsing I think, though I prefer a laptop so I can have a real word processor and spreadsheet to work when there is no internet connection.

Increasingly, IT has been moved from "enablers of capability" to "untrustworthy and ineffectual geeks in a closet". It's been going this way for years, and the trend is clear.

This article just lays it out in a fairly unclear, rambling fashion. The concept held for IT is pretty clear, none the less.

Who's to blame? Personally, I put it on IT and application consulting firms who back their pretty weasel words with... more weasel words. They promise the sky, and due to the timeframes involved and the complexity

A 90% implementation of 80% of the problem sounds like a great success. Write me down 100% of the whole problem, never change your mind, never change the problem, and never change anything else, and you might be able to legitimately complain that you didn't get 100% of a solution. If you poorly define a problem which in itself changes during the execution, and you still expect 100% of a solution, then the problem lies in your expectations.

Consumer devices are fine. It's consumer-grade services that are the problem. If corporate users have devices that are slaves to a consumer-grade service like Apple's or Google's, they can be attacked or disabled through that service. Typically, there's no contractual recourse available.

Microsoft is more careful about this. They offer corporate control over Windows Update. If your corporate apps stop working because Apple pushed an iPhone update, you have no recourse.

Look, after years of going around schlepping their drugs to doctors, the pharm companies realized that they were going about it all wrong. Instead, they took their message to the masses, and let self-diagnosing consumers tell the doctors what they wanted.

Now, IT providers are doing the same thing, and if IT service companies (which is all any IT department really is) want to keep their piece of the pie they'll do like the doctors did and get on board.